"I'm determined that we modernise services for children who have mental health problems.

"In many respects, the way services are organised is stuck in the dark ages and it needs to be brought into the modern age."

Pressures on system

The task force he has set up will look at how to improve the way children's mental health services are organised and commissioned, how to make better use of voluntary and charitable groups and how to make it easier for young people to access help online.

"Crucially, I want young people to be involved", Mr Lamb added.

The group will publish its findings next spring.

The minister was talking as he visited a purpose-built children's mental health unit in Colchester.

The St Aubyn Centre has 10 intensive care beds, 15 general psychiatric beds and a suite to admit young people with mental health illnesses have been detained by police.

The facility, built two years ago at a cost of £9m, is exactly the sort of facility the NHS should be providing, according to Mr Lamb.

But even here staff talk of the pressures on the system.

"In children's mental health, we usually have to make not the best but the least worse decision," said one official.

Two of the patients in the centre have come from Cornwall. It has also admitted patients from Newcastle and Somerset in recent weeks.

Case study

Touring the facility alongside the minister was Jonny Benjamin.

The 27-year-old came to prominence earlier this year when he launched the #FindMike campaign, an attempt to trace the man who'd talked him out of a suicide attempt.

Mr Benjamin will be a member of the task force, and says he knows from first-hand experience the merits of good mental healthcare at a young age. "If I'd got the support I needed 10 years ago, I don't think I'd be in the position I'm in today.

"I believe I would have been able to manage my mental health, I would have been diagnosed with schizophrenia much earlier and that would have had a much more positive impact on my life."

The task force will be co-chaired by officials from the Department of Health and NHS England.

One in 10 children and young people aged five to 16 suffers from a mental health condition, but just 0.6% of NHS funding is spent on services.

Sarah Brennan, chief executive of Young Minds, who will also sit on the task force said: "We can't have discussions about provision of services without talking about resources. Ultimately, they're (the NHS) are going to have to spend some money."